


Still a Kid

by Ferith12



Series: Partners [6]
Category: DCU
Genre: Character Study, Child Vigilantism is a Complicated Moral Issue, Dick is an Exception Not the Rule, Friendship, Gen, I Know Nothing About Green Arrow and have No Right to Bash but Do Anyway, Ollie Bashing, Shameless Ollie Bashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 15:15:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6289600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferith12/pseuds/Ferith12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ideas of Oliver Queen were never very good.<br/>	But Oliver Queen thought that if batman had a “sidekick” then he needed one too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still a Kid

Batman and Robin were partners, but no one else saw that. Bats were secret people. Batman would never let on how much he cared for Robin, how he saw him as his… friend? Brother? (It was not quite father and son, so they were brothers, brothers who depended on each other absolutely. ) No. Everyone else didn’t see that. They saw the Dark Knight, and they saw a small boy tagging along. Because Robin was so SMALL and so what else could he be doing but tagging along, the bright squire. 

And of course that gave Oliver Queen IDEAS. The ideas of Oliver Queen were never very good.

Oliver Queen thought that if batman had a “sidekick” then he needed one too. Wasn’t that splendid. And so, when he found a young teen who could shoot better than he did, he decided to make him his ward and have him join him in superheroing.

Batman, of course, was NOT HAPPY. But what could he say? How could he complain about Queen bringing a kid into this mess when he had done it himself already, with a child much younger than the fourteen year old Roy Harper. He couldn’t explain Robin. He couldn’t explain the deadly purpose and the bravery and the dreadful, dreadful fear in Dick’s eyes that night in the bat cave, when the boy had stood there so broken and so scared and with such deadly, deadly determination. He couldn’t explain how this was Robin’s choice and no adult had EVER been able to stop Robin when he was determined about something.

Dick himself was conflicted. Because, in spite of the fact that Speedy was almost five years older than him, Robin was still cognizant that the redhead was just a kid, and superheroing wasn’t kid’s work. His own situation was just one gigantic mess: the world had chewed him up and swallowed him and spat him back out again, and then crime fighting had swallowed him whole. And being an optimistic kid, he figured that, all things considered, everything had turned out really well. But that didn’t mean that it would for some random other kid, some kid who hadn’t been through earth’s best attempt at hell. And the fact that Ollie had pretty much INVITED, even ENCOURAGED, if not outright PUSHED a fourteen year old into crime fighting was just so wrong.

And yet Speedy was good. Almost better than Green Arrow in a lot of ways. And star City wasn’t GOTHAM, so all in all Roy was pretty safe, at least as safe as anyone was in this line of work.

And the fact that there was now a new kid hero? That was SO exciting. Robin wanted to meet him right away. Of course Batman did happen to be enough of an authority figure to NOT want Robin hanging out with with Queen’s kid. Which really, was pretty understandable.

But the fact was, Dick was lonely. He was the kind of person who needed people, and until recently, people were things he had in abundance. Now he was pretty much completely alone aside from Bruce and Alfred (and they were so silent and awkward/correct that they hardly counted some days). There were two main reasons for this. One was the whole Robin thing, which would put a strain on any civilian friendship, since he would have to keep it secret. The second was the fact that Dick was a gypsy circus acrobat whose first language wasn’t even English, and the Gotham illite he went to school with were racists and classists, and pretty much any other ists human beings, to their shame, are capable of being. Robin NEEDED a friend, and Speedy was the perfect candidate. 

So Robin did what he always did, and ran away on his own, disregarding orders. And honestly, Batman didn’t mind much.

Batman had a lot of rules and gave a lot of commands, so that everyone was sure that he was an extremely strict mentor. Really, Batman just enjoyed all the creative ways that Dick found to disobey him, and he had to keep up the strict persona. He did NOT want Queen to keep a loose leash on his kid, or for any of the others to think it’s okay to give out secret information to ANYONE, so he had to pretend to at least TRY to keep Robin in the dark.

Robin had a great time with Speedy, and before long the two were close friends despite the age difference. Robin’s experience difference helped to bridge that gap some. And then, too, Roy was as desperate for a friend as Dick was.

But for as well as Robin knew Speedy and as open as Robin was with him, at least in some ways, Speedy was as clueless as anyone as to the true dynamic of the Dynamic Duo.

Part of this was because there was no way for Robin to put into words the way he felt about Batman, it was weird and confusing and wonderful and completely unlike any traditional relationship. 

But the other part of it was that Robin almost unconsciously played a role around Speedy, based on the older boy’s perceptions of him. When Roy saw Robin he saw a kid. Albeit an extremely talented, genius kid who had been in the game longer than he had and was about ten times better, he was just a kid. And a tiny kid at that. And sure he lived in Gotham, was a vigilante in Gotham, but he was just a little kid, and everyone knew how protective Batman was of him. Surely he didn’t really see all the truly terrible things, surely Batman made sure he remained innocent.

He had no way of understanding that Batman was not the infallible presence he pretended to be, that Dick had lost his innocence long before he became Batman’s Robin, and that there was no way even Batman could keep him away from people who needed help if he had a chance in helping them.

And so when Roy looked at Robin he saw an almost painfully cheerful, hyperactive kid who just happened to be Batman’s sidekick.

And Robin loved it that way.

Because it wasn’t false really, he was just a cheerful hyperactive kid who happened to fight crime. There was other stuff, too, of course, his psyche was a complete mess, but the only one who could come even close to understanding the darker parts of him was Bruce (and even Bruce didn’t get it, not really). And it was nice, so nice to just be a kid once in a while, to let someone be just a tad bit condescending because they actually noticed that he was only nine. And that bit of him, that bit that against all odds was perfectly okay, that bit that was still all laughter and fun and thought that all the talk about justice and RULES were abysmally boring, that was the one part that Batman, for all his knowing Robin inside and out, was in awe of and marveled at and most of all was immensely proud of, but could never hope to understand, could never hope to share. Even as a child Batman had been serious, mature, and there was a part of Robin that related to that, a part that had always been listening in on adult conversations and understanding way more than he let on, but there was also a bigger part that wondered what kind of creature Batman was, because someone that serious, some that dark, someone that not playful, someone that NOT A KID, couldn’t really be human.

And that second part of him loved to hang out with Roy. Because while Roy didn’t share that sort of personality, he did expect it. He didn’t treat it like some sort of miracle. Roy took him at face value, didn’t add a “Despite…” to every one of his actions. Roy came to know HIM, not as a product of his past, but simply as he was, and while the older boy found him annoying beyond words sometimes, he liked the boy that Robin was. That was nice, to be liked simply because he was likable. It was nice to be part of a friendship where he could do anything because he knew that that was what Roy expected. And while one of Dick’s ambitions goals in life was to get Batman to lighten up a little, that goal was much more easily achieved with the usually serious, angsty teen. So Dick loved to tease Roy about his silly hat and get him into trouble in every way possible. Loved to talk about disney movies that Dick had only just discovered and Roy for some crazy reason seemed to think he was to old for (especially the girly ones). Dick loved to let Roy be the responsible one in their relationship (it was good for the teen for one thing. Seriously, Roy could do with a bit more responsibility, especially with Green Arrow as a mentor) while Robin sat back and cackled and enjoyed the fact that he was still a kid.


End file.
